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That report of a demonstration of a positive energy payback via nuclear fusion cost litterally 10s of millions of dollars to get enough juice to power one electric space heater only for about a half hour.
Now, granted, Wilbur & Orville probably didn't have visons of 747s making regular trans-Pacific flights when they flew that first 100 yds at Kitty Hawk, but at least theory was on their side....Scaling up 2 kWs of fusion in a giant cyclotron to industrial production is, however, problematic.
We'd make no progress at all if we didn't dream, but pretty stupid to burn our bridges while we're dreaming, before they pan out.
One thing I know for sure, you will get better fuel economy with pure gas over gas with ethanol added.
Over the years I have noticed I average about 10% less milage with the 10% ethanol added gas. I use the one that is cheapest after taking in the difference in milage.
Getting back to the OP, corn is not a viable source of biofuel from an energy payback standpoint. Sugar cane seems to be. I also think sugar beets may be also. Cane needs a certain climate to grow in. Beets, not so much. I've head they grow sugar beets in North Dakota.
Getting back to the OP, corn is not a viable source of biofuel from an energy payback standpoint. Sugar cane seems to be. I also think sugar beets may be also. Cane needs a certain climate to grow in. Beets, not so much. I've head they grow sugar beets in North Dakota.
The problem with corn as a fuel source is that you only use the fruit. Sugar cane has more usable sugar/starch per plant than corn but as you point out, requires a more specific and less avaialble climate for growing...
...but it's more complex than that....American farmers work wth a very small proifit margin and are subject to the uncontrollable risks of capricious weather....Less thn 2% of Americans are farmers and they feed not only 350M Americans, but our grain exports equal the total grain exports of the next 9 leading exporters put together (!!) Very few of that 2% can live solely on their farmimg profits. ....If we want to keep our 2% farming, we need to keep them profitable....
...To grow enough extra corn to fulfill the extra demand created by the ethanol mandate, farmers grew more ac of corn....The supply/demand ratio remained almost unchanged, so corn remained cheap...If we did away with the mandate and merely subsidized farmers to maintain their profits, they would grow less corn, but its price would skyrocket as the supply/demand ratio changed. Catch 22.
If nuclear fusion can ever be made commercially viable, it will be decades away. Planning for it's use is not viable at this point.
It's definitely coming though, and whatever electrical production method we have this century, it will be replaced by fusion next century. People forget this and think 2300 will be all wind turbines over the ocean. We should just try to have the most minimally impacting generation this century till we actually figure fusion out. And ethanol is about the worst impacting generation given we're at peak population this century as well.
I’m against edible farm crops being used for fuel from a moral and ethical point of view.
That would be a good POV if food crrops were being diverted from the food supply to make fuel. At this point, with 8 B people in the world, it's not being diverted. Nobody is starving because we can't grow enough food. Thank you agian, Norman Borlaug.
The agronomists tell us we have the potential to feed 20 B people if state of the art ag techiques were universally employed. Even here in the US, the most efficient farming in the world, we could increase yields by 25% (!) if all farmers would simply use field drain tiling to full advantage.
OTOH- turning food into EtOH requires fairly sophistacated enzyme techniques, and doesn't improve fuel consumption all that much...As stated earlier, it only decreases petrol consumption by 1%-- not very helpful in the long run, and no "cleaner."
As i also stated earlier-- biomass can be used to generate electricity, heat homes and move our ICE vehicles along with minimal changes to the infrastructure.
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